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Thursday, July 25, 2013

The One Voice Film Festival that I mentioned here has just announced their schedule for all of the films.

It looks like a pretty hectic schedule, but there is bound to be something for everyone in here. Films ranging from as far afield as Russia, Denmark, Chile, Finland and Australia will compliment the many films that have been produced in Bournemouth by the young people there.

It takes place this Saturday (27th July) and looks like it is going to be a pretty fascinating evening. For more information check out their Facebook page or visit www.filmjunkies.org.uk

Friday, July 19, 2013

I don’t normally post reviews of older
films, but seeing as the news
today frightened the hell out of me, I thought that I would revisit the
brilliant documentary about ‘natural’ gas hydraulic fracturing in America.The process of fracking is already highly
controversial as it basically creates and deep underground earthquake in order
to fracture the rock and release shale gas, which can then be harvested and
sold as energy.

Josh Fox lives in Pennsylvania and has
always been fond of water and nature.One day he gets a letter that states that if he sells some of his land
to corporate fracking companies then he can make up to $100,000.Thinking this to good to be true he begins to
investigate the environmental and health impacts of these processes on local
people in and around the central states of the USA.On his travels he meets people who have such
contaminated water supplies that they can light their taps on fire; he meets
people who have lost their senses of taste and smell due to breathing the air
around their homes; he meets workers and builders of the fracking
infrastructure who have no idea that they are handling dangerous chemicals;
and, predictably, he meets company representatives who deny all evidence of
contamination and responsibility.

Fox begins to compile a list of problems
that the citizens he meets are declaring, which includes

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

This summer
in Bournemouth there is a film festival called One Voice International
Film Festival that celebrates young filmmakers and short films.
I managed to ask one of the curators of the festival a few simple
questions about their goals and hopes for the event:

1. What
is the mission statement of One Voice festival?

The aim of
our film festival is to encourage film making and to celebrate the
accomplishments of young film-makers.

2. What
type of filmmakers are you looking for?

We are not
looking for a specific type of filmmakers. Our only restrictions are:

1.Films in which young people
under the age of 26 years were key to the production.

2.Films no longer than 15
minutes length.

3.Films should have been made
after October, 2011.

We wont
accept films with strong violence or sexual nature as we have young audiences.

Sunday, July 14, 2013

I appreciate the irony of reducing some of the most
influential and important academic film theory books into a simple ‘top ten’,
but for those who are new to studying the discipline or want a solid place to
jump into the deep end then these books are some of the most respected and fascinating
books ever written on the subject.

Be warned: They are not for the absolute beginner, but are
all worth the time and effort (in other words difficult, but not impossible). They
are in alphabetical order, by author.

1.Roland
Barthes – Image, Music, Text

As
philosophy died and cultural theory was born, Barthes was on the cusp of the
revolution.This collection of essays
contains the seminal essay The Death Of
The Author that explains that it is at the moment that a film (or other
cultural ‘text’) is watched rather
than when it is made where meanings
are created.This means that an audience
can interpret a film in whichever way they want, without having to restrict
themselves to what the director intended.

2.Jean
Baudrillard – Simulacra and Simulation

Without
Baudrilard there would be no Matrix trilogy.This book explores the idea that we are all living in a world of images
and simulated experiences with no meaning.A simulacra is a copy without an original – like when a film makes you
feel nostalgic for a time that never really existed (like every Disney film
ever made), and Baudrillard suggests that we have all forfeited reality and
replaced it with reproductions of reality, Hollywood style. Anyone that has ever fought with a loved one
and found themselves accidentally quoting a line from a film/TV show will enjoy
this book…

3.Carol J
Clover – Men, Women & Chainsaws

For
anyone who is interested in horror films, especially the ‘slasher’ films of the
1980s, this is the quintessential
book on the subject.It is here that
Clover outlines her theory about the ‘Final Girl’ – aka the girl left alive at
the end of the film who has not broken any of the moral ‘rules’ that have been
set by the monster – If you watch the film Scream and listen to Randy talking
about the rules of horror films, he is working mainly from Clover’s theories.

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

As all local cool people are aware, the
fantastic Southampton art house cinema is being
refurbished at the moment.It is
easily one of (if not the most) beautiful cinema in the country located on the
seafront with big glass windows looking out from the bar out over the water.They have been posting some updates about
their refurb over on a tumblr
account.

They have just announced their line up
for when they open again this weekend but for picturehouse members they are
having a big gala opening in the bar.Those with membership get to see the building before the public at large
as well as getting free screenings of either Noah Baumbach’s Frances Ha or Rob Epstein’s Lovelace.

Those who are not members definitely should be, as
the cinema is great and I am a huge advocate – I’m not paid for saying this, but
it is genuinely my favourite place to watch films and I can’t wait for the new season…

Monday, July 8, 2013

There
is probably no film that has been talked about more this summer than Brad
Pitt’s self-funded World War Z.Plagued with rumours about reshoots and
gaining notoriety for potential failure, the film was looking like Costner’s Waterworld or Travolta’s
Battlefield Earth.

The
story begins with a really rubbish title sequence followed by one of the most
painful exposition set ups I’ve seen in a recent blockbuster film.The film opens in Gerry Lane’s (Brad Pitt)
kitchen as he makes breakfast for his wife (Mireille Enos) and daughters.A TV that is on the counter is showing
footage of global riots and ‘strange behavior’, whilst at the same time Gerry’s
daughter is asking him whether he ‘misses his job’ at the UN.If audiences can’t figure out what is going
to happen next then they need to watch more ‘90s action thrillers or give up
entirely.The plot then bursts into
action with the family having to escape a zombie outbreak in New York and then
make their way to a safe zone in the Pacific Ocean.Gerry is then told that the only way that the
military will look after his family is if he goes on a special UN mission in
order to locate ‘patient zero’ and try to figure out the disease.

There
is a brilliant moment in Shaun Of The
Dead where Shaun has a go at Ed for using ‘the Z word’ because it is
‘ridiculous’.

In
WWZ there is something more interesting going on:by trying to be as realistic as possible, the
filmmakers have conceded that the characters in their film live in a world
similar to the audiences’, and have therefore all seen zombies films – so
rather than to downplay references to ‘the Z word’, all of the characters seem
to use it as much as possible to highlight their intimate knowledge with
zombies and zombie resistance that they must have absorbed from TV…